England batsman’s revival at Lord’s after a difficult winter in Australia is
important in the short and long term

Lord’s has been like a Swiss sanatorium for the last couple of days, or a bracing rest home in the Highlands. It has been the place for England's cricketers - or those seriously wounded in Australia - to rehabilitate.

Four of them have seized the occasion to make Test runs again after a barren winter: Ian Bell, Joe Root, Matt Prior and Stuart Broad. Australia's pace attack had been world-class; Sri Lanka's, having been commendably full of length on the first morning, was not overtly better on the second day than Bangladesh’s had been in their two Tests at Lord’s.

Prior, an accomplished cyclist, has provoked widespread admiration for getting back on to his bike after falling off in Australia, where both his batting and wicketkeeping were badly bruised. With forthright strokes Prior banished the self-doubts and the spectre of Jos Buttler, and at 32 resurrected his career.

The revival of the 23 year-old Root was important for England’s long-term too. Nobody in this side could take over the Test captaincy now from Alastair Cook but, having scored his maiden Test double-century, Root has reassured us he will be around when the time comes.

In Australia Root had been pounded into a state of shock, almost a coma. After scraping a few runs when England’s batting evaporated in Brisbane, he had been promoted to fill the number-three vacancy suddenly created by Jonathan Trott, but Root was visibly shocked by the ferocity of Australia’s new-ball attack, unprepared by anything in his youth.

In his first attempt at number three, in Adelaide, Root was hit under the ribs by Mitchell Johnson- and we tend to underestimate the effect of a direct hit upon a batsman’s mind because the fashion is to make no fuss. As soon as Nathan Lyon came on, Root wildly slogged the spinner’s first ball to deep square: never in his measured career had he reacted so inappropriately.

Root did not have the weight of stroke to counter-punch in last winter’s Ashes, not that anybody else did: he was reduced to 33 runs per 100 balls, or two runs an over. But he had youth on his side, unlike Trott or Graeme Swann, and he was rested - withdrawn from the firing line, just like a soldier - before the scars became too deep, after the fourth Test in Melbourne.

A fractured right thumb on the white-ball tour of the West Indies in March must have seemed bad luck at the time, but missing the World T20 finals was what Root’s battery needed: it was his first break from the England treadmill since his Test debut in Dec 2012. The energy was re-born in the sunshine of Lord’s, and it was manifest not so much in his batting - he did not go beyond third gear, because he sensibly let his partners motor ahead - as in his running between wickets, most especially when he twice ran four.

Busy-ness between wickets has to be an ingredient of any new era, and Root set the tone for this one, firstly with Moeen Ali, and most notably with Prior, but also with Chris Jordan. Root’s running had become ground down by not having England partners so young and keen as himself.

Although he was the one specialist batsman England had left overnight, Root contributed “only” 98 of the 231 runs which England added yesterday.

Nothing exotic on the offside, nothing airy-fairy that Geoffrey Boycott would have disapproved of. He nudged and knocked the ball away to leg, scoring almost three-quarters of his runs on that side of the wicket, 143 of them.

Root was never so inconvenienced by Sri Lanka’s attempt at Bodyline - sometimes with six men out for the mis-hook - as Prior so strangely was.

The pitch was a little two-paced if the ball was dropped short, that is all. Australia’s right-arm fast bowlers might try round the wicket at Prior in the next Ashes series.

When Broad was out, after his four-filled frolic, Root was still 53 short of his double-hundred but this England side bats deep if not, as yet, very classily. Liam Plunkett did more than hold up his end, James Anderson just about did so, and a little sweep off Rangana Herath made Root only the third Yorkshire batsman to reach the distinguished landmark for England, after Boycott and Len Hutton.

Root’s long-term future surely lies higher up the order than number five, close to the opening positions that his predecessors occupied. Gary Ballance has the temperament for a number three, but not the footwork so long as he is stuck in his crease. Still, Root’s name can be inked into England’s next Ashes team, along with about half the other members of this side, perhaps more, and only 13 months to go.